WHEN I did get to bed at last
I was unspeakably tired; the
stretching out, and the relaxing
of the long-tense muscles, how
luxurious, how delicious! but
that was as far as I could get
-- sleep was out of the question
for the present. The ripping
and tearing and squealing of
the nobility up and down the
halls and corridors was pandemonium
come again, and kept me broad
awake. Being awake, my thoughts
were busy, of course; and mainly
they busied themselves with Sandy's
curious delusion. Here she was,
as sane a person as the kingdom
could produce; and yet, from
my point of view she was acting
like a crazy woman. My land,
the power of training! of influence!
of education! It can bring a
body up to believe anything.
I had to put myself in Sandy's
place to realize that she was
not a lunatic. Yes, and put her
in mine, to demonstrate how easy
it is to seem a lunatic to a
person who has not been taught
as you have been taught. If I
had told Sandy I had seen a wagon,
uninfluenced by enchantment,
spin along fifty miles an hour;
had seen a man, unequipped with
magic powers, get into a basket
and soar out of sight among the
clouds; and had listened, without
any necromancer's help, to the
conversation of a person who
was several hundred miles away,
Sandy would not merely have supposed
me to be crazy, she would have
thought she knew it. Everybody
around her believed in enchantments;
nobody had any doubts; to doubt
that a castle could be turned
into a sty, and its occupants
into hogs, would have been the
same as my doubting among Connecticut
people the actuality of the telephone
and its wonders, -- and in both
cases would be absolute proof
of a diseased mind, an unsettled
reason. Yes, Sandy was sane;
that must be admitted. If I also
would be sane -- to Sandy --
I must keep my superstitions
about unenchanted and unmiraculous
locomotives, balloons, and telephones,
to myself. Also, I believed that
the world was not flat, and hadn't
pillars under it to support it,
nor a canopy over it to turn
off a universe of water that
occupied all space above; but
as I was the only person in the
kingdom afflicted with such impious
and criminal opinions, I recognized
that it would be good wisdom
to keep quiet about this matter,
too, if I did not wish to be
suddenly shunned and forsaken
by
everybody as a madman.
The next morning Sandy assembled
the swine in the dining-room
and gave them their breakfast,
waiting upon them personally
and manifesting in every way
the deep reverence which the
natives of her island, ancient
and modern, have always felt
for rank, let its outward casket
and the mental and moral contents
be what they may. I could have
eaten with the hogs if I had
had birth approaching my lofty
official rank; but I hadn't,
and so accepted the unavoidable
slight and made no complaint.
Sandy and I had our breakfast
at the second table. The family
were not at home. I said:
"How many are
in the family, Sandy, and where
do they keep
themselves?"
"Family?"
"Yes."
"Which family,
good my lord?"
"Why, this
family; your own family."
"Sooth to say,
I understand you not. I have
no family."
"No family?
Why, Sandy, isn't this your
home?"
"Now how indeed
might that be? I have no home."
"Well, then,
whose house is this?"
"Ah, wit you
well I would tell you an I
knew myself."
"Come -- you
don't even know these people?
Then who invited
us here?"
"None invited
us. We but came; that is all."
"Why, woman,
this is a most extraordinary
performance. The
effrontery of it is beyond admiration.
We blandly march into a man's
house, and cram it full of the
only really valuable nobility
the sun has yet discovered in
the earth, and then it turns
out that we don't even know the
man's name. How did you ever
venture to take this extravagant
liberty? I supposed, of course,
it was your home. What will the
man say?"
"What will
he say? Forsooth what can he
say but give thanks?"
"Thanks for
what?"
Her face was filled with a
puzzled surprise:
"Verily, thou
troublest mine understanding
with strange words.
Do ye dream that one of his estate
is like to have the honor twice
in his life to entertain company
such as we have brought to grace
his house withal?"
"Well, no --
when you come to that. No,
it's an even bet
that this is the first time he
has had a treat like this."
"Then let him
be thankful, and manifest the
same by grateful
speech and due humility; he were
a dog, else, and the heir and
ancestor of dogs."
To my mind, the situation was
uncomfortable. It might become
more so. It might be a good idea
to muster the hogs and move on.
So I said:
"The day is
wasting, Sandy. It is time
to get the nobility
together and be moving."
"Wherefore,
fair sir and Boss?"
"We want to
take them to their home, don't
we?"
"La, but list
to him! They be of all the
regions of the
earth! Each must hie to her own
home; wend you we might do all
these journeys in one so brief
life as He hath appointed that
created life, and thereto death
likewise with help of Adam, who
by sin done through persuasion
of his helpmeet, she being wrought
upon and bewrayed by the beguilements
of the great enemy of man, that
serpent hight Satan, aforetime
consecrated and set apart unto
that evil work by overmastering
spite and envy begotten in his
heart through fell ambitions
that did blight and mildew a
nature erst so white and pure
whenso it hove with the shining
multitudes its brethren-born
in glade and shade of that fair
heaven wherein all such as native
be to that rich estate and --"
"Great Scott!"
"My lord?"
"Well, you
know we haven't got time for
this sort of thing.
Don't you see, we could distribute
these people around the earth
in less time than it is going
to take you to explain that we
can't. We mustn't talk now, we
must act. You want to be careful;
you mustn't let your mill get
the start of you that way, at
a time like this. To business
now -- and sharp's the word.
Who is to take the aristocracy
home?"
"Even their
friends. These will come for
them from the far
parts of the earth."
This was lightning from a clear
sky, for unexpectedness; and
the relief of it was like pardon
to a prisoner. She would remain
to deliver the goods, of course.
"Well, then,
Sandy, as our enterprise is
handsomely and
successfully ended, I will go
home and report; and if ever
another one --"
"I also am
ready; I will go with thee."
This was recalling the pardon.
"How? You will
go with me? Why should you?"
"Will I be
traitor to my knight, dost
think? That were dishonor.
I may not part from thee until
in knightly encounter in the
field some overmatching champion
shall fairly win and fairly wear
me. I were to blame an I thought
that that might ever hap."
"Elected for the long term," I
sighed to myself. "I may as well
make the best of it." So then
I spoke up and said:
"All right;
let us make a start."
While she was gone to cry her
farewells over the pork, I gave
that whole peerage away to the
servants. And I asked them to
take a duster and dust around
a little where the nobilities
had mainly lodged and promenaded;
but they considered that that
would be hardly worth while,
and would moreover be a rather
grave departure from custom,
and therefore likely to make
talk. A departure from custom
-- that settled it; it was a
nation capable of committing
any crime but that. The servants
said they would follow the fashion,
a fashion grown sacred through
immemorial observance; they would
scatter fresh rushes in all the
rooms and halls, and then the
evidence of the aristocratic
visitation would be no longer
visible. It was a kind of satire
on Nature: it was the scientific
method, the geologic method;
it deposited the history of the
family in a stratified record;
and the antiquary could dig through
it and tell by the remains of
each period what changes of diet
the family had introduced successively
for a hundred years.
The first thing we struck that
day was a procession of pilgrims.
It was not going our way, but
we joined it, nevertheless; for
it was hourly being borne in
upon me now, that if I would
govern this country wisely, I
must be posted in the details
of its life, and not at second
hand, but by personal observation
and scrutiny.
This company of pilgrims resembled
Chaucer's in this: that it had
in it a sample of about all the
upper occupations and professions
the country could show, and a
corresponding variety of costume.
There were young men and old
men, young women and old women,
lively folk and grave folk. They
rode upon mules and horses, and
there was not a side-saddle in
the party; for this specialty
was to remain unknown in England
for nine hundred years yet.
It was a pleasant, friendly,
sociable herd; pious, happy,
merry and full of unconscious
coarsenesses and innocent indecencies.
What they regarded as the merry
tale went the continual round
and caused no more embarrassment
than it would have caused in
the best English society twelve
centuries later. Practical jokes
worthy of the English wits of
the first quarter of the far-off
nineteenth century were sprung
here and there and yonder along
the line, and compelled the delightedest
applause; and sometimes when
a bright remark was made at one
end of the procession and started
on its travels toward the other,
you could note its progress all
the way by the sparkling spray
of laughter it threw off from
its bows as it plowed along;
and also by the blushes of the
mules in its wake.
Sandy knew the goal and purpose
of this pilgrimage, and she posted
me. She said:
"They journey
to the Valley of Holiness,
for to be blessed
of the godly hermits and drink
of the miraculous waters and
be cleased from sin."
"Where is this
watering place?"
"It lieth a
two-day journey hence, by the
borders of the
land that hight the Cuckoo Kingdom."
"Tell me about
it. Is it a celebrated place?"
"Oh, of a truth,
yes. There be none more so.
Of old time
there lived there an abbot and
his monks. Belike were none in
the world more holy than these;
for they gave themselves to study
of pious books, and spoke not
the one to the other, or indeed
to any, and ate decayed herbs
and naught thereto, and slept
hard, and prayed much, and washed
never; also they wore the same
garment until it fell from their
bodies through age and decay.
Right so came they to be known
of all the world by reason of
these holy austerities, and visited
by rich and poor, and reverenced."
"Proceed."
"But always
there was lack of water there.
Whereas, upon
a time, the holy abbot prayed,
and for answer a great stream
of clear water burst forth by
miracle in a desert place. Now
were the fickle monks tempted
of the Fiend, and they wrought
with their abbot unceasingly
by beggings and beseechings that
he would construct a bath; and
when he was become aweary and
might not resist more, he said
have ye your will, then, and
granted that they asked. Now
mark thou what 'tis to forsake
the ways of purity the which
He loveth, and wanton with such
as be worldly and an offense.
These monks did enter into the
bath and come thence washed as
white as snow; and lo, in that
moment His sign appeared, in
miraculous rebuke! for His insulted
waters ceased to flow, and utterly
vanished away."
"They fared
mildly, Sandy, considering
how that kind of
crime is regarded in this country."
"Belike; but
it was their first sin; and
they had been of perfect
life for long, and differing
in naught from the angels. Prayers,
tears, torturings of the flesh,
all was vain to beguile that
water to flow again. Even processions;
even burnt-offerings; even votive
candles to the Virgin, did fail
every each of them; and all in
the land did marvel."
"How odd to
find that even this industry
has its financial
panics, and at times sees its
assignats and greenbacks languish
to zero, and everything come
to a standstill. Go on, Sandy."
"And so upon
a time, after year and day,
the good abbot
made humble surrender and destroyed
the bath. And behold, His anger
was in that moment appeased,
and the waters gushed richly
forth again, and even unto this
day they have not ceased to flow
in that generous measure."
"Then I take
it nobody has washed since."
"He that would
essay it could have his halter
free; yes, and
swiftly would he need it, too."
"The community
has prospered since?"
"Even from
that very day. The fame of
the miracle went abroad
into all lands. From every land
came monks to join; they came
even as the fishes come, in shoals;
and the monastery added building
to building, and yet others to
these, and so spread wide its
arms and took them in. And nuns
came, also; and more again, and
yet more; and built over against
the monastery on the yon side
of the vale, and added building
to building, until mighty was
that nunnery. And these were
friendly unto those, and they
joined their loving labors together,
and together they built a fair
great foundling asylum midway
of the valley between."
"You spoke
of some hermits, Sandy."
"These have
gathered there from the ends
of the earth. A
hermit thriveth best where there
be multitudes of pilgrims. Ye
shall not find no hermit of no
sort wanting. If any shall mention
a hermit of a kind he thinketh
new and not to be found but in
some far strange land, let him
but scratch among the holes and
caves and swamps that line that
Valley of Holiness, and whatsoever
be his breed, it skills not,
he shall find a sample of it
there."
I closed up alongside of a
burly fellow with a fat good-humored
face, purposing to make myself
agreeable and pick up some further
crumbs of fact; but I had hardly
more than scraped acquaintance
with him when he began eagerly
and awkwardly to lead up, in
the immemorial way, to that same
old anecdote -- the one Sir Dinadan
told me, what time I got into
trouble with Sir Sagramor and
was challenged of him on account
of it. I excused myself and dropped
to the rear of the procession,
sad at heart, willing to go hence
from this troubled life, this
vale of tears, this brief day
of broken rest, of cloud and
storm, of weary struggle and
monotonous defeat; and yet shrinking
from the change, as remembering
how long eternity is, and how
many have wended thither who
know that anecdote.
Early in the afternoon we overtook
another procession of pilgrims;
but in this one was no merriment,
no jokes, no laughter, no playful
ways, nor any happy giddiness,
whether of youth or age. Yet
both were here, both age and
youth; gray old men and women,
strong men and women of middle
age, young husbands, young wives,
little boys and girls, and three
babies at the breast. Even the
children were smileless; there
was not a face among all these
half a hundred people but was
cast down, and bore that set
expression of hopelessness which
is bred of long and hard trials
and old acquaintance with despair.
They were slaves. Chains led
from their fettered feet and
their manacled hands to a sole-leather
belt about their waists; and
all except the children were
also linked together in a file
six feet apart, by a single chain
which led from collar to collar
all down the line. They were
on foot, and had tramped three
hundred miles in eighteen days,
upon the cheapest odds and ends
of food, and stingy rations of
that. They had slept in these
chains every night, bundled together
like swine. They had upon their
bodies some poor rags, but they
could not be said to be clothed.
Their irons had chafed the skin
from their ankles and made sores
which were ulcerated and wormy.
Their naked feet were torn, and
none walked without a limp. Originally
there had been a hundred of these
unfortunates, but about half
had been sold on the trip. The
trader in charge of them rode
a horse and carried a whip with
a short handle and a long heavy
lash divided into several knotted
tails at the end. With this whip
he cut the shoulders of any that
tottered from weariness and pain,
and straightened them up. He
did not speak; the whip conveyed
his desire without that. None
of these poor creatures looked
up as we rode along by; they
showed no consciousness of our
presence. And they made no sound
but one; that was the dull and
awful clank of their chains from
end to end of the long file,
as forty-three burdened feet
rose and fell in unison. The
file moved in a cloud of its
own making.
All these faces were gray with
a coating of dust. One has seen
the like of this coating upon
furniture in unoccupied houses,
and has written his idle thought
in it with his finger. I was
reminded of this when I noticed
the faces of some of those women,
young mothers carrying babes
that were near to death and freedom,
how a something in their hearts
was written in the dust upon
their faces, plain to see, and
lord, how plain to read! for
it was the track of tears. One
of these young mothers was but
a girl, and it hurt me to the
heart to read that writing, and
reflect that it was come up out
of the breast of such a child,
a breast that ought not to know
trouble yet, but only the gladness
of the morning of life; and no
doubt --
She reeled just then, giddy
with fatigue, and down came the
lash and flicked a flake of skin
from her naked shoulder. It stung
me as if I had been hit instead.
The master halted the file and
jumped from his horse. He stormed
and swore at this girl, and said
she had made annoyance enough
with her laziness, and as this
was the last chance he should
have, he would settle the account
now. She dropped on her knees
and put up her hands and began
to beg, and cry, and implore,
in a passion of terror, but the
master gave no attention. He
snatched the child from her,
and then made the men-slaves
who were chained before and behind
her throw her on the ground and
hold her there and expose her
body; and then he laid on with
his lash like a madman till her
back was flayed, she shrieking
and struggling the while piteously.
One of the men who was holding
her turned away his face, and
for this humanity he was reviled
and flogged.
All our pilgrims looked on
and commented -- on the expert
way in which the whip was handled.
They were too much hardened by
lifelong everyday familiarity
with slavery to notice that there
was anything else in the exhibition
that invited comment. This was
what slavery could do, in the
way of ossifying what one may
call the superior lobe of human
feeling; for these pilgrims were
kind-hearted people, and they
would not have allowed that man
to treat a horse like that.
I wanted to stop the whole
thing and set the slaves free,
but that would not do. I must
not interfere too much and get
myself a name for riding over
the country's laws and the citizen's
rights roughshod. If I lived
and prospered I would be the
death of slavery, that I was
resolved upon; but I would try
to fix it so that when I became
its executioner it should be
by command of the nation.
Just here was the wayside shop
of a smith; and now arrived a
landed proprietor who had bought
this girl a few miles back, deliverable
here where her irons could be
taken off. They were removed;
then there was a squabble between
the gentleman and the dealer
as to which should pay the blacksmith.
The moment the girl was delivered
from her irons, she flung herself,
all tears and frantic sobbings,
into the arms of the slave who
had turned away his face when
she was whipped. He strained
her to his breast, and smothered
her face and the child's with
kisses, and washed them with
the rain of his tears. I suspected.
I inquired. Yes, I was right;
it was husband and wife. They
had to be torn apart by force;
the girl had to be dragged away,
and she struggled and fought
and shrieked like one gone mad
till a turn of the road hid her
from sight; and even after that,
we could still make out the fading
plaint of those receding shrieks.
And the husband and father, with
his wife and child gone, never
to be seen by him again in life?
-- well, the look of him one
might not bear at all, and so
I turned away; but I knew I should
never get his picture out of
my mind again, and there it is
to this day, to wring my heartstrings
whenever I think of it.
We put up at the inn in a village
just at nightfall, and when I
rose next morning and looked
abroad, I was ware where a knight
came riding in the golden glory
of the new day, and recognized
him for knight of mine -- Sir
Ozana le Cure Hardy. He was in
the gentlemen's furnishing line,
and his missionarying specialty
was plug hats. He was clothed
all in steel, in the beautifulest
armor of the time -- up to where
his helmet ought to have been;
but he hadn't any helmet, he
wore a shiny stove-pipe hat,
and was ridiculous a spectacle
as one might want to see. It
was another of my surreptitious
schemes for extinguishing knighthood
by making it grotesque and absurd.
Sir Ozana's saddle was hung about
with leather hat boxes, and every
time he overcame a wandering
knight he swore him into my service
and fitted him with a plug and
made him wear it. I dressed and
ran down to welcome Sir Ozana
and get his news.
"How is trade?" I
asked.
"Ye will note
that I have but these four
left; yet were they
sixteen whenas I got me from
Camelot."
"Why, you have
certainly done nobly, Sir Ozana.
Where have
you been foraging of late?"
"I am but now
come from the Valley of Holiness,
please you
sir."
"I am pointed
for that place myself. Is there
anything stirring
in the monkery, more than common?"
"By the mass
ye may not question it!....
Give him good feed, boy,
and stint it not, an thou valuest
thy crown; so get ye lightly
to the stable and do even as
I bid...... Sir, it is parlous
news I bring, and -- be these
pilgrims? Then ye may not do
better, good folk, than gather
and hear the tale I have to tell,
sith it concerneth you, forasmuch
as ye go to find that ye will
not find, and seek that ye will
seek in vain, my life being hostage
for my word, and my word and
message being these, namely:
That a hap has happened whereof
the like has not been seen no
more but once this two hundred
years, which was the first and
last time that that said misfortune
strake the holy valley in that
form by commandment of the Most
High whereto by reasons just
and causes thereunto contributing,
wherein the matter --"
"The miraculous fount hath
ceased to flow!" This shout burst
from twenty pilgrim mouths at
once.
"Ye say well,
good people. I was verging
to it, even when
ye spake. "
"Has somebody
been washing again?"
"Nay, it is
suspected, but none believe
it. It is thought
to be some other sin, but none
wit what."
"How are they
feeling about the calamity?"
"None may describe
it in words. The fount is these
nine days
dry. The prayers that did begin
then, and the lamentations in
sackcloth and ashes, and the
holy processions, none of these
have ceased nor night nor day;
and so the monks and the nuns
and the foundlings be all exhausted,
and do hang up prayers writ upon
parchment, sith that no strength
is left in man to lift up voice.
And at last they sent for thee,
Sir Boss, to try magic and enchantment;
and if you could not come, then
was the messenger to fetch Merlin,
and he is there these three days
now, and saith he will fetch
that water though he burst the
globe and wreck its kingdoms
to accomplish it; and right bravely
doth he work his magic and call
upon his hellions to hie them
hither and help, but not a whiff
of moisture hath he started yet,
even so much as might qualify
as mist upon a copper mirror
an ye count not the barrel of
sweat he sweateth betwixt sun
and sun over the dire labors
of his task; and if ye --"
Breakfast was
ready. As soon as it was over
I showed to Sir
Ozana these words which I had
written on the inside of his
hat: Chemical Department, Laboratory
extension, Section G. Pxxp. Send
two of first size, two of No.
3, and six of No. 4, together
with the proper complementary
details -- and two of my trained
assistants." And I said:
"Now get you
to Camelot as fast as you can
fly, brave knight,
and show the writing to Clarence,
and tell him to have these required
matters in the Valley of Holiness
with all possible dispatch."
"I will well, Sir Boss," and
he was off. |